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This is Hacker Public Radio episode 3,943 for Wednesday the 13th of September 23.

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Today's show is entitled, why my Dell does it better on Linux?

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It is hosted by Nightwise and is about 12 minutes long.

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It carries a clean flag.

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The summary is, Nightwise talks about how he uses his Dell XPS 15 with Linux.

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Hey there Hacker Public Radio, this is Nightwise from the Nightwise.com podcast and I wanted

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to send in a quick show about my experiences on running Ubuntu on my Dell XPS 50.

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I've been a Linux user since about 2000 and have often on always had at least some form

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of Linux in my life.

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I'm a cross-platform geek which means that I jump around from windows to the back to Linux

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on a daily basis and I love to have multiple operating systems at my fingertips just

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to geek out and get some variety.

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Luckily, however, I've had a little bit of a rough time getting my hands into the Linux

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desktop because, quite frankly, I was too busy to tinker.

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I needed machines that would work for me that would really get things done and I didn't

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have a lot of time to poke around.

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So I ended up spending most of my time on my Windows machine and on my Mac.

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I run my own business, I work as freelance consultant so that means that sometimes I

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need to use production machines, sometimes I need to use the clients machine so I didn't

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really have time to get around and play with Linux and I say play because it has been

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that, at least from the desktop side of things for the last years, playing around with

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the operating system and installing it, getting it done, but not really using it in anger.

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As an experiment during Corona during the COVID era, I, because I was working from home

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predominantly and the client at that time allowed it, worked from a Linux workstation full

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time. I was using Linux for a living and in my cross-platform journey from operating system

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to operating system, I managed to get everything done on any machine that I would open up.

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Now, of course you say, otherwise that's not really hard to do, you basically just need the cloud

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and that's about it. And if you would say that you're right, it didn't always use to be like that.

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Hence, the 20 years of podcasting, but it pretty much comes out of the fact that if you can

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install your favorite browser and run your favorite web apps, you can almost do anything that you want to do.

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So, why did I pick up the Dell XPS 15 and started to play with Linux? Well, that is an interesting

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story because it is not really for the reason that you want to think about.

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You might think about it. I'm working for a large IT company as a consultant for a couple of days

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and they gave me one of their workstations that is completely managed. I think some kind of HP laptop,

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I don't know what it is. It is made from aluminum, it is razor sharp, it is a 2 in 1 which is

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absolutely useless when it comes out to Windows 11 and it has a terrible, terrible screen.

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It's one of these hard plastic screens with for use as a touch screen and it is very small

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and it is very reflective. That would not be a problem since I was mostly when I'm working

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from home, I'm working indoors, I hook it up to my dog and I work from there.

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But, it being summer, I also got a little frustrated that I couldn't really work from outside.

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I couldn't do anything outside and I didn't sit in doors all day because I couldn't sit on my porch

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work from that laptop because I couldn't see squats. I had thoughts because they mostly work

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from a cloud environment to use my own machine. Windows machine or my Mac to use it as my

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bring your own device. But, because of this company's quite aggressive policy when it comes to mobile

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device management, when I tried it out with my iPad, I noticed that the iPad almost got onboarded

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into their MDM and now dear friends, I love my clients but I don't love them enough to give them

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government governance over the machines that I use for my own company and personally.

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So, when I thought about giving it a try to do a little bring your own device for this customer

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and using my Mac or my Linux machine to connect to their environment, I thought like maybe not.

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Maybe not these. Maybe I can use something that they have a harder time onboarding and that

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gives them only a browser to play with and that of course would be Linux. So, I installed Ubuntu

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and I think it's 22.04 or even later up. I can't remember it's the latest long-term support

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distra that's on there and install that on my Dell XPS. Now, I have to admit something.

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Windows on the Dell XPS 15 that I own is not the operating system that gives me the best experience

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and that's something I didn't expect because I've been owning laptops for the longest time

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and I've been playing around with Linux for the longest time and over the last couple of years ago

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I got myself a Dell XPS 13. I really liked it and I thought I was going to bite the bullet. I was going

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to run Linux on this thing so I ordered it OEM with Linux on it. Long to hold, it was not the best

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experience. The Bluetooth flash Wi-Fi card just wasn't supported under Linux so I could have Wi-Fi

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but I couldn't get any Bluetooth device to connect. I ended up opening up my Dell laptop

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which was OEM shipped with Ubuntu swapping out the Bluetooth slash Wi-Fi card and putting

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it in another one from another brand in order for it to work. So I was a little bit disappointed

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at that. So when I got my hands on this second-hand Dell XPS 15 I thought like, well,

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let's not do the Linux thing, just give it plain Windows. So give it Windows 11 with all the

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drivers and all the updates and everything the Dell tells you to install so I thought this isn't

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OEM install of a Dell machine like it's supposed to be only to end up with a hovercraft.

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Under Windows the Dell XPS 15 that I own makes an enormous amount of fan noise for absolutely

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no reason. Even if the machine is idling the fan is active not I've been owning fan

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less machines for a couple of years now I've got a MacBook Pro M1 and a Surface Pro X which

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all have passive cooling. And that to me was wow what is this this this things make things makes

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noise why why machine do you make noise because it's not doing anything. So I tinker to

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around with it and I fath around with it and I found like no it's not really getting any better

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it's just the way it is. So I decided to give Linux ago so I installed the latest version of Ubuntu

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I installed a proprietary drivers because there's an Nvidia card on there that I want to use

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I don't see why I want to use the discrete graphics of that stupid intel that makes my display look

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all I don't know cheap. So if there's a great Nvidia graphics card in there why not use it so

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I decided to go that way and I ended up with a machine that was surprisingly fast that had a very

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good graphics display because of the Nvidia graphics card driving the visuals and that was

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hard to manage by some kind of windows into mdm environment. So I gave it a try yesterday I took

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chromium a browser that I don't use for any of my other projects because for my private stuff I use

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firefox and for everything that's to do with my company I do use edge and decided to install

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everything on there. Hooked up with the client's cloud environment and well there little

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in tune mdm didn't really get its claws into my machine now did it and ended up spending the entire

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afternoon working outside using the beautiful matte display that I have on the del xbs 15 the Nvidia

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graphics card that gives a great video resolution and Linux as my operating system to basically

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do what I needed to do. So in the end results I am very happy with why little setup and if

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ever you need to work for another client that wants to do some remote management on your machines

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and you don't really trust it this might also be something that you can do. And on the other hand it

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really gives a feather in the cap of what Linux is all about you don't want to have your machine

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managed and doing things in the background you want to freedom and here for the well for the first time

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in in a real situation I can vouch for Linux as being the operating system that does protect

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my freedoms and my privacy and that kind of guards my own personal digital environment without

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being prone to whatever runs in the back. A sandbox maybe a firewall between corporate and what I am

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doing I don't know or maybe just a plain good OS to run on that del xbs 15 runs better

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battery life is super graphic card is well supported although with proprietary drivers

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display is fantastic I love the del's 15 inch matte display I hate glossy displays with a passion

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and it gives me the privacy that I need to separate whatever I do for one customer with the things

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that I do for the other customer another yay for Linux if you also have an open source or just plain

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geeky story to tell record a show send it to HPR be part of the community and inspire

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everybody else until next time this was night wise and the night wise I can't podcast see you guys

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you have been listening to Hecker Public Radio at Hecker Public Radio.org

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